Coping Skills

Dealing with addiction isn’t easy. Even after people get out of rehab, they have to control the disease. That’s where coping skills or strategies are useful. However, what are coping strategies, and how do they help people with addiction?

Understanding Coping Skills

People can develop skills to cope with ups and downs throughout life. Once they get out of rehab, they face situations that cause stress or make them want to use drugs again. Coping strategies can help them deal with these situations and avoid relapse.

No one can truly overcome addiction for good. Drug addiction is a mental disorder that sticks with people for the rest of their lives. Over time, their struggle fades, and it becomes easier to cope. Until they reach that point, however, coping strategies prevent them from having to start rehab all over again.

Keep in mind that not all coping strategies work for everyone. Relapse prevention isn’t an exact science. Instead, recovery is about people finding the strategies that work best for them. Then, they have to apply them in everyday situations.

Anger Management

One example of a coping strategy is anger management. Developing coping skills that handle anger is fundamental for getting through life. Getting angry is a normal human emotion, and it happens to everyone at one point or another. However, it’s not productive when the anger leads them to fall back into old, unhealthy habits.

Anger management can prevent people from reaching the point when they want to use again. It involves helping them notice when their anger rises. Then, it teaches them to take steps to stay in control.

Controlled Breathing

Controlled breathing is a coping strategy that works for a lot of people. When they start to get upset, they focus on steady, even breaths. Controlled breathing brings down their breathing and heart rates to normal levels.

Learning how to breathe properly isn’t hard and starts with taking several slow and deep breaths of air. For this to work, people have to focus on filling their lungs with as much air as possible. They need to expand their ribs to allow even more air to enter their bodies. Next, they should take twice as long to exhale for the maximum effect.

Controlled Thinking

When people feel addiction cravings coming on, it’s easy to let the thoughts overwhelm them. However, controlled thinking can keep their focus on other things. To control their thinking, they need to ask themselves questions such as:

Why am I experiencing drug cravings?

What situation led to the onset of this craving?

Is the onset of this drug caving something that I can avoid in the future?

What emotions did I feel right before the drug craving started?

Come Up With a Hobby

When developing coping skills, it’s a great idea for people to have hobbies that they enjoy. In most cases, drug cravings last for about 20 to 30 minutes. If they can find a hobby to fill that time, they can outlast these cravings.

Let Crestview Recovery Teach You How to Cope With Addiction

At Crestview Recovery, we help people learn coping skills to overcome addiction. However, we don’t stop at teaching people how to cope. Some of the other programs we offer include:

Crestview Recovery treats both men and women for addiction. We only have 30 beds to ensure that we don’t take on too many clients at once. Limiting our number of patients allows us to give you our full attention for an individualized experience.

Don’t try to beat your addiction alone. Learn coping skills at Crestview Recovery. Call us right away at 866-262-0531 for more information.